Honoring a fallen coach (moved)

I never met Brian Morrison. I’m not going to canonize the man; it’s doubtful those who knew him would, either. After all, we are all flawed. But I can say this: He was the kind of coach I wish for my kids. Sunday’s column follows. Note: I moved this back up for anyone who missed it.

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JOHNSTOWN — The young teens had a baseball game scheduled for that night that they didn’t want to play, couldn’t play, and wouldn’t play. But the Johnstown Babe Ruth team still assembled that hot and sticky Friday afternoon earlier this month, clad in their signature purple and gold.

Brian Morrison’s team arrived in their uniform tops to pay homage and to mourn. Whether the teens knew it or not, by showing up in colors they served as an honor guard of sorts for their slain coach, a coach worth honoring.

The measure of a person is rarely captured in a standard obituary. We know from Morrison’s that the Johnstown man was a 42-year-old husband and father of three sons; that he graduated from Gloversville High in 1986; that he was the head groundskeeper for the Gloversville school district; that he hunted and fished and loved the outdoors; and that he coached in the Tri-County Babe Ruth Baseball League.

We also know from the news reports he was murdered in Gloversville the night of July 6, stabbed in the neck as he reportedly walked home from a bar, and that an apparent homeless man named Derek Kenney has been charged in the slaying.

If you look at the sum total of Morrison’s obituary, you may wonder why he would garner such an outpouring of affection that Facebook pages would be created, and an overflow had to be turned away from his wake.

“He was an incredible coach who was loved by, geez, all his players,” said Marlene Nellis, whose 13-year-old daughter, Morgan, created a Facebook page in Morrison’s honor. “There were a lot of boys whom he really touched their lives.”

One was Nellis’ 14-year-old son, Joe, who had been coached by Morrison either informally or as part of a team since he was 8. “He wanted kids who would listen and wanted to get better,” Nellis said. In return, Morrison was the kind of coach who’d stay late and throw three buckets of balls if a kid wanted extra batting practice.

He always seemed to have the time, even after a game. Mike Blackwood, a Morrison assistant and battery mate on the Gloversville High team in the mid-1980s, said Morrison threw BP to a struggling player immediately after the last game he would ever coach.

Morrison wasn’t a yeller; he’d pull kids aside quietly, remind them mistakes get made in a game, and send them back out. He wasn’t caught up in winning, although his Babe Ruth teams that played summer and fall ball were successful. He cared about the kids learning, and having fun, and being there when they needed him, whenever that would be.

“He was out there all hours; it wouldn’t matter if it was 9 o’clock at night and too dark to see the baseball,” Becky Morrison, his wife of 19-plus years, said Saturday. “If there was a kid who wanted help, he went.

“They used to call him on Sundays. It didn’t matter if we had plans to do something. If somebody called and wanted extra help, we went.”

Morrison, who started dating her future husband when she was 13 and never had another boyfriend, said his devotion to the game and helping kids out didn’t cause household friction: “We never fought about it. It was who he was.”

After Morrison’s slaying, the Babe Ruth league canceled the remainder of the season. “The kids just didn’t want to play,” Johnstown High baseball coach Aaron Mraz said. Well, they do now.

This afternoon (Sunday) at Husky Field in Gloversville, a field Morrison played on, then tended and coached, his team that could not play after his murder will take the diamond for one more game.

They’ll play a pickup game to raise money for his family, for wife Becky and their three sons, Brian Jr., Zachary and Patrick. They’ll play the game — first pitch is slated for 2 p.m., with activities starting at 1 — that got rescheduled after Friday’s rain to remember a man who got what it meant to be a coach.

The accurate measure of any person is not wealth accumulated or degrees garnered or positions attained, but positive impact imparted. By that score that matters most, Brian Morrison was a most accomplished man, one truly deserving of an honor guard.